Today, German magazine Der Spiegel reported that it got a look at slides detailing the systematic bugging of European Union offices in the US. The news from the paper cited top-secret documents “that Spiegel has in part seen,” which were dated from 2010 and were recently obtained by Edward Snowden. The paper did not publish any of the documents it claims to have reviewed.

Der Spiegel claims that “in addition to installing bugs in the [EU] building in downtown Washington, DC, the EU representation's computer network was also infiltrated. In this way, the Americans were able to access discussions in EU rooms, as well as e-mails and internal documents on computers.” The paper also says it saw documents indicating that European members of the United Nations were also subject to the same kind of spying.

Finally, the German paper reported that it saw documents linking the NSA to “an electronic eavesdropping operation” in Brussels. That operation allegedly took place five years ago, when EU security experts noticed some strange calls targeting the maintenance system of the building that houses the EU Council of Ministers and the European Council. At the time, those calls were traced back to NSA offices in the nearby NATO compound.

According to Reuters, president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz e-mailed a statement saying "On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations.” Schulz said that if the allegations were true they would have a “severe impact” on US-EU relations.

Wow, this is going to be special kind of a shit-storm if true. That seems like it would have been one of those things Snowden kept in safekeeping as insurance doesn't it? If it wasn't then that makes me really curious what kind of stuff he would set aside (if he did).

I think, at the very least, it's time the rest of the world puts trade sanctions against the U.S. for all the B.S. After all, the U.S. government wouldn't hesitate to do it to anyone else if this crap were done to them.

Don't have a problem with that. The Guardian is publishing excerpts from classified documents.Should an uncleared govt employee read one of these on an uncleared machine, there would beh--- to pay. Probably physical destruction of the hard drive, at a minimum.

That's standard procedure with any classified information that ends up in the public domain. The military issues directives to its people not to read the stuff. I assume that plenty of them read it anyway, but since the material is classified, strict compliance with protocol dictates that military folks don't look at it.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying it's standard practice that's been going on in the military for a long time. Contrary to what your statement implies, nobody in the general public is being blocked from reading those stories.

Speaking as a member of the military, there are regulations in the military on handling of classified data. If you don't have the clearance, you aren't suppose to see it, to include leaked data. The Army (and Air Force as well) are simply enforcing these rules by putting a filter on government computers that block known sites that have the leaked classified data. Frankly, if you're a civilian, you don't have to worry about it.

I doubt that EU officials weren't aware of US agencies spying on them, those rumours were swirrling around for years. What makes this situation interesting is a) that the general public now knows this and b) that there are elections in Germany coming soon and the German electorate wants to see their politicians to stand up against this.

I said it when everybody was up in arms over China's espionage: the U.S. is doing the same thing. Must be kind of embarassing for the politicians who got carried away and publicly called China out on this. They knew of their bigotry.

I doubt that EU officials weren't aware of US agencies spying on them, those rumours were swirrling around for years. What makes this situation interesting is a) that the general public now knows this and b) that there are elections in Germany coming soon and the German electorate wants to see their politicians to stand up against this.

The question should be, to who was the NSA providing the information to?

I doubt that EU officials weren't aware of US agencies spying on them, those rumours were swirrling around for years. What makes this situation interesting is a) that the general public now knows this and b) that there are elections in Germany coming soon and the German electorate wants to see their politicians to stand up against this.

The question should be, to who was the NSA providing the information to?

Ah we had worse. When a soviet spy revealed that the us planned to transform western Europe into a nuclear wasteland if the Soviet army would invade for example. A little bugging is nothing in comparison.

I'm not buying it. Why would Snowden release this, now, to Der Spiegel? I haven't seen anything from Greenwald on this, and he works with the Guardian, not Der Spiegel. And Greenwald already said what the next leak would be last night when he skyped into the Chicago Socialism Conference: the billion/day calls getting routed directly into the NSA databases.

This doesn't pass the sniff test.

Snowden can work with more than one journalist. He should, really. The feds can target one journalist, if he works with a number of them at different publications he can build a coalition if need be.

It also make sure the feds know that going after Greenwald won't stop the signal.

Lets not kid ourselves. While I do not condone what the NSA has done I do think it is pretty ignorant to think that our allies aren't snooping on us. They however have not been caught with their pants down......yet.

If Der Spiegel is to be believed, then you are right...it would devastate support for him domestically. It would be colossally stupid for him, also, to do this and take the narrative away from what the NSA is doing on American citizens.

But I don't think they are to be believed.

Speaking as a German citizen, I can assert you that Der Spiegel is an extremely reliable newspaper. It is sometimes a little sensationalist and left-winged, but very famous for unveiling political scandals, and therefore a natural address for revealing a secret like this.

It makes a lot of sense to release this information to other newspapers than the Guardian, since it affects the EU and not american citizens. As the British government was working hand in hand with the NSA, Snowden has made a larger impact with this information by releasing it to a newspaper in a country that is directly affected. Because of the size of Germany, a German newspaper is the obvious choice. Here, he had to choose between the somewhat conservative FAZ, the neutral Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel. In my opinion, Der Spiegel was the correct choice.

It was also a very wise choice to release it from a different standpoint: His original leak did not get European politicians moving as much as he probably had hoped for (definitely not as much as the German public has hoped, can't tell about other countries). Now he shows the European governments that they are directly affected, too, thus forcing them to act.

The first reactions in Germany range from a delayed negotiation with open outcome, to an upfront cancellation without discussion, of the upcoming German-US trade agreement. This HAS an impact.

The truth: no disenchantment for the American citizens but a storm warning on the commercial, military, diplomatic partnerships

Forgery: no disenchantment for the American citizens but a conclusion on an attempt of fumigation of the agencies of world press (AP, AFP, Reuters) which would be désinformées by false positive to compromise any new revelations

In a case as in the other one, there will be a spot of suspicion in the relations between 28 of the European Union and the United States. Who would want to soil ? Russian or Chinese ? Both ?

The president of the European parliament asks expressly for clarifications since Wednesday, June 25th the American authorities. Best would be to answer it. Clearly.

As others have said, I don't really consider this surprising. As if being an ally was an excuse to stop spying (are people really that naive?). What i'm far more curious about is what Snowden has deemed more sensitive such that he hasn't released it yet.

As others have said, I don't really consider this surprising. As if being an ally was an excuse to stop spying (are people really that naive?).

If spying is OK, then why does the US law make execution mandatory for anyone caught spying?

There is a difference between espionage and intelligence gathering. Intelligence is legal, espionage is not and often carries the death penalty or life in prison. Some countries don't even bother with a court case, they order assassination instead.

That the US government is gathering intelligence is obvious. That they are spying is not acceptable, especially since their own laws make it a crime.

The I in CIA is for "intelligence". They're only supposed to do stuff that the US law and international treaties allow them to do.

I'm not saying the NSA should be pulling this crap, or that it doesn't deserve the backlash. Just that it would a shame to get all these governments saber rattling over hearsay. Maybe he should just post it all and get it over with, that way false stories would be eliminated.

Do people honestly believe that none of the 27 countries in the EU are spying on the USA?

That's what spies do. All governments know that's what they do.

You refer of course to the famous ability of two wrongs to combine to create a right.

It's not that two wrongs make a right; it's that allies spying on each other is pretty common. There were a lot of incidents in the 90's of France spying on American satellite, aircraft, and telecom companies, for example. (And of course there is the famous case of Mitterrand approving the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior while docked in New Zealand).

Still, it is embarrassing to the US.

And I do wonder where Spiegel got the information from - I was under the impression that Snowden himself wasn't still distributing information like this.

Lets not kid ourselves. While I do not condone what the NSA has done I do think it is pretty ignorant to think that our allies aren't snooping on us. They however have not been caught with their pants down......yet.

Actually they have been in at least one case: Jonathan Pollard for Israel Wikipedia

States spying on each other isn't in the same level as the US spying on its own citizens (not to mention everybody else). State level espionage is nothing new and should be taken for granted, even between "friends".

If Der Spiegel is to be believed, then you are right...it would devastate support for him domestically. It would be colossally stupid for him, also, to do this and take the narrative away from what the NSA is doing on American citizens.

But I don't think they are to be believed.

As a German I can safely say that "Der Spiegel" has a similar reputation than the New York Times or the Washington Post for serious journalism. When they say they've seen the documents I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.

I also don't get why this would reduce the support he has domestically. Frankly, I can understand that the Americans are enraged about the NSA spying on US citizens. Try to imagine how the rest of the world must feel who doesn't have any legal rights or voice in that matter and how dependent they all are on US companies.

As others have said, I don't really consider this surprising. As if being an ally was an excuse to stop spying (are people really that naive?).

If spying is OK, then why does the US law make execution mandatory for anyone caught spying?

Execution is not mandatory for any crime. It's certainly not mandatory for espionage; there are dozens of people serving prison sentences for espionage in the US right now. The only people I can think of who have been sentenced to death for espionage were the Rosenbergs (for giving nuclear secrets to the USSR); I don't think anyone else has been executed for espionage since WWII.

Do people honestly believe that none of the 27 countries in the EU are spying on the USA?

That's what spies do. All governments know that's what they do.

You refer of course to the famous ability of two wrongs to combine to create a right.

It's not that two wrongs make a right; it's that allies spying on each other is pretty common.

I'm aware that it's a standard practice and everyone does it. I'm just not convinced that that makes it the right thing to do, and it certainly takes away the US's moral high ground when we start getting outraged at China for hacking us when we're doing the same thing to basically everyone.

Maybe the most revealing "secret" of all, is that the general public, at large is so woefully unaware of geopolitics. Countries both friend and foe have been spying on each other since the creation of countries. Study some history, and be surprised. And as far as "right/wrong" Ars is no stranger to those debates, every time we have an IP story.

As others have said, I don't really consider this surprising. As if being an ally was an excuse to stop spying (are people really that naive?).

If spying is OK, then why does the US law make execution mandatory for anyone caught spying?

Execution is not mandatory for any crime. It's certainly not mandatory for espionage; there are dozens of people serving prison sentences for espionage in the US right now. The only people I can think of who have been sentenced to death for espionage were the Rosenbergs (for giving nuclear secrets to the USSR); I don't think anyone else has been executed for espionage since WWII.

Wikipedia says: "In United States law, treason,[12] espionage,[13] and spying[14] are separate crimes, the former two of which have graduated punishment levels, the latter for which death is a mandatory sentence."

Any person who in time of war is found lurking as a spy or acting as a spy in or about any place, vessel, or aircraft, within the control or jurisdiction of any of the armed forces, or in or about any shipyard, any manufacturing or industrial plant, or any other place or institution engaged in work in aid of the prosecution of the war by the United States, or elsewhere, shall be tried by a general court-martial or by a military commission and on conviction shall be punished by death.

In other words, if you spy on the US government during war time, and if the court finds you guilty, you will be executed. The law doesn't allow anything less.